Riverside Foundation Inc.

Riverside Hospital Foundation Inc. is a legacy "hospital-conversion" foundation: it was capitalized entirely from the 1991 sale of Riverside Hospital (a Jacksonville institution dating to 1911) and has received $0 in new contributions in every filing year in this dataset (2012-2023). It funds exclusively from investment returns on that endowment, meaning its giving capacity moves with markets, not fundraising campaigns — total giving has ranged narrowly from roughly $633K to $948K a year over the last decade. The foundation runs three distinct tracks: Community Grants, Legacy Grants (explicitly tied to Riverside Hospital's original values of personal treatment, high-quality care, and clinical training), and Innovation Grants (added in 2013 for novel, measurable, self-sustaining, replicable healthcare programs). First-time applicants should treat this as a relationship-first, paperwork-heavy funder rather than a portal-driven one: there is no public downloadable form, and the foundation's own instructions direct applicants to contact Executive Director Helen Werking directly for "an application & brochure about the grant process." Governance is unusually stable — the twelve-to-thirteen-member board (Judith Maness, William Knauer, Charles Kinney, Clint Dawkins, Katy Towers, Lorraine Dajani, Alonzo Walton, James Abernathy, W. Randall Mann, Robert Franco, Catherine Bauman, Robert Colyer, Gresham Stoneburner, David Williams) shows the same names cycling through President, Vice President, and Treasurer roles across filing years, with essentially no new faces — meaning trustees who already know an applicant organization carry outsized influence, and cold, generic proposals are working against an entrenched, familiar applicant pool. With only one compensated staff member (Werking, at $60,000 in the most recent filings, up from $40,000 a decade ago), there is no program-officer bench to shepherd unsolicited applications, so a complete, correctly formatted first submission matters more than at larger funders. The application restriction language is unambiguous: grants are "limited to 501(c)(3) for charitable healthcare related services in a 5 county area of N.E. Florida" (Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, St. Johns) — organizations outside this footprint or mission lane are not a fit regardless of proposal quality.

Grants paid (cash disbursed) ranged from $540,700 (FY2012) to $822,604 (FY2022) over the decade of filings available, with the five most recent years (FY2019-FY2023) averaging roughly $720,500 in grants paid annually and total giving (which includes administrative grant-related costs) running slightly higher, from $768,052 (FY2019) to $948,175 (FY2022) before settling to $827,680 in FY2023. Total assets have grown slowly and steadily from $10.04M (FY2012) to $12.21M (FY2024), a roughly 22% increase over twelve years driven almost entirely by investment performance — net investment income has been volatile, spiking to $891,325 in FY2021 (a strong market year) and falling back to $356,088-$433,601 in FY2022-FY2023. Contributions received were $0 in every single filing year, confirming this is a closed-endowment funder with no active fundraising arm; all capacity is investment-return-dependent, which explains the modest, market-correlated swings in annual giving rather than dramatic year-over-year growth. The DB's grantee-tracking data captured only one recipient in depth — "Jax Community Fdtn" (almost certainly the Community Foundation for Northeast Florida), with 3 recorded grants totaling $2,353,888 (average $784,629) tagged "charitable health care issues." This figure is best read as a data-capture limitation rather than a typical award: a single grantee receiving more than two years' worth of total foundation giving in aggregate strongly suggests these are large pass-through, donor-advised, or fund-transfer grants rather than representative program awards. Given the foundation disburses $700K-$950K annually across what its own literature frames as three separate competitive grant cycles (Community, Legacy, Innovation) serving a five-county region, individual program-level awards to operating nonprofits are very likely in the low-to-mid five figures, not seven figures — applicants should calibrate ask amounts modestly. The foundation's own site states more than $17 million has been distributed since inception (1991-present) and that current assets stand at $14.6 million, above the $12.21 million reported on the FY2024 Form 990, implying continued gradual endowment growth into 2025-2026.

Riverside Hospital Foundation sits at the small end of Jacksonville's healthcare-philanthropy landscape — its $12.2 million in assets is roughly 3% the size of Baptist Health System Foundation's endowment and its footprint is far narrower than the multi-county, multi-cause Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. Where Baptist and the Community Foundation operate structured online application systems and multiple concurrent funds, Riverside remains a single-executive-director operation using a request-and-mail process, making it comparatively harder to research from outside but also more personally accessible to applicants willing to call ahead. Its niche — hyper-local, healthcare-only, endowment-funded, quarterly-reviewed — most closely resembles the broader national category of small "hospital-conversion" foundations created when a community hospital's sale proceeds are redirected into a standing charitable endowment.

Public-facing news on Riverside Hospital Foundation is sparse — it maintains no social media presence in available records and does not appear to issue press releases. The clearest recent activity signal is a grant to The Arc Jacksonville under the Innovation Grant track, funding a pilot program placing nursing students in direct, hands-on internships with adults who have intellectual and developmental differences (I/DD); the exact award date and dollar amount could not be independently confirmed beyond the recipient's own announcement. The foundation's grant application page confirms the Community and Legacy grant deadlines of February 15, 2026 and August 15, 2026 remain active and unchanged, indicating program continuity rather than disruption. Leadership has been stable: Helen Werking continues as the sole compensated Executive Director, with compensation rising steadily from $40,000 (FY2012-2013) to $60,000 (FY2022-2023), suggesting incremental board-approved raises rather than a leadership transition. The foundation's own website reports cumulative distributions have now crossed $17 million since the 1991 founding and that current assets total $14.6 million — both figures modestly ahead of the last Form 990 on file (FY2024, $12.21 million in assets), consistent with continued quiet, steady endowment growth into 2025-2026 rather than any major new initiative, capital campaign, or strategic pivot.

Do not look for an online application portal beyond a Smartsheet submission link — the foundation's explicit instruction is to contact Helen Werking directly for "an application & brochure about the grant process," so the first move should be a phone call to (904) 730-9552 or a letter to 9090 Barrister Ct., Jacksonville, FL 32257, well ahead of the February 15 or August 15 deadline. Treat the physical-copy requirement as a hard filter, not a formality: Community and Legacy applications need an online submission plus 10 mailed copies without attachments and 4 more with full attachments, while Innovation Grant applications require 14 complete mailed copies — missing or short-counting copies is a plausible reason for a proposal to be set aside before the board ever discusses it. Because the board meets quarterly to consider grant requests, expect roughly a one-quarter lag between the Feb 15/Aug 15 deadline and a funding decision — plan program timelines accordingly and do not assume rapid turnaround. Align language precisely to eligibility: the restriction is "501(c)(3) for charitable healthcare related services in a 5 county area of N.E. Florida" (Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau, St. Johns), so proposals should use "healthcare delivery," "healthcare access," or "healthcare organizational effectiveness" framing rather than generic human-services language, and should state the five-county service area explicitly on the cover page. For the Innovation track specifically, emphasize measurable outcomes, a defined self-sustaining funding endpoint (i.e., what happens after Riverside's money runs out), and replicability to other NE Florida providers — these three criteria are stated verbatim in the foundation's own program description and should be addressed point-by-point. Given the tight, long-tenured board (the same handful of names have rotated through President, VP, and Treasurer for over a decade), a warm introduction or existing relationship with a board member or with Werking materially improves odds versus a cold paper submission; if no such relationship exists, use the pre-application call to build one before the packet is mailed. Common mistakes to avoid: applying for general operating support without a healthcare-delivery nexus, applying from outside the five-county area, submitting digital-only without the required mailed copies, and requesting amounts that ignore the foundation's modest ~$700K-$950K total annual giving spread across multiple cycles and grantees — six- or seven-figure asks are very unlikely to be proportionate.